The 'ancient carbon' of Alaska's tundras is being released, starting a vicious warming cycle

While most models that include melting permafrost look at CO2, Russian scientists have recently discovered some 7,000 underground bubbles of permafrost-related methane in Siberia. Since methane traps heat 86 times more effectively than CO2 over a 20-year span, these findings suggest that the effect of the melting permafrost is even greater than first thought.